What is a Homelab and why you need it

I believe many of you have heard about Homelab and been wondering what is it or do I need one? Here’s what it is. Basically, a Homelab is a compounded system that connects all your devices. Let’s say you have a laptop, a smartphone, and they are connected to the same router. Congratulations! You got a Homelab!

But this is certainly not enough for people with special needs. For example, web developers may need to test their code on a test server before uploading everything to the production environment. Music producers may get several hundred TBs data which needs to be backed up. Even just for movie hobbyists, they need a home media center to chill and relax.

As a consequence, some of them end up buying mature products like NAS. Some built a web server on a raspberry pi. And there are many more scenarios where people try to add something to their home network. This is cool and fun. But what if you want more. What if you want a gateway to monitor all your cameras and make sure you are the only person allowed to access. What if you want a server to host your service 24/7 with remote control ability? What if you want a robust system allowing you to integrate and expand? Now you got the answer. You are the person who needs a Homelab.

But this doesn’t mean you need to pay $10k for a rack server with hundreds of GB RAM and end up being blamed by your wife for $900 electric bill. Actually, as mentioned above, you sure can start with a bunch of raspberry pi. But if you want to realize some key features of a Homelab, such as firewall, NAS, or media center, you definitely need something more powerful.

An ideal choice to start with would be an i3 comparable CPU with virtualization technology like Intel VT or AMD-V. Then you can deploy several applications on single hardware separately. Also if you want to make it a router to serve as a firewall, you’ll need at least two NIC.

In order to make Homelab accessible to whoever interested in it or want to utilize it, we have designed and manufactured a cutting edge mini PC ODYSSEY – X86J4105864. Also, we provide plentiful instructions about how to make it a nice and cool Homelab server. If you are looking for something to start with at a budget-friendly price, this is the thing.

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